Michael Jordan has words with the New York Knicks' Patrick Ewing. Photo: AP

Reggie White (#92) (superbowlsave)

One time, Steve Kerr was told, former NBA skyscraper Manute Bol blocked a shot taken by fellow big man Benoit Benjamin. The 7-foot-7 Bol, a native of the Sudan, then rubbed it in to Benjamin.

“Get that [garbage] out of here, Big Body-Little Head,” Bol said.

“I guess Benoit had a small head for a seven-footer,” Kerr says.

There’s funny trash talk like this. There’s trash talk like what some athletes say is most common —trying to pump themselves up. Then there’s the kind of stuff Kevin Garnett allegedly said to Carmelo Anthony this past week — according to Black Sports Online, Garnett told Anthony that wife La La “tastes like Honey Nut Cheerios.”

So if Garnett did say that, did he go too far? Anthony and La La are husband and wife. But if they weren’t, ESPN analyst and former Cowboy Darren Woodson says that would be different.

“As long as it doesn’t get personal, then everything’s OK,” he says. “When it becomes a personal matter, then that’s when things become a little extra heated.”

Most trash talk isn’t like that. It doesn’t poke at family backgrounds or personal issues.

“In my experience, it was rarely personal. Usually guys are talking just to get themselves pumped up,” Kerr says. “Michael Jordan was the master. And then it was usually something along the ‘you can’t guard me’ theme. It wasn’t a case of guys being malicious. It was more just they were trying to get themselves going.”

“Trash talking was along the lines of [bragging about how you were playing], but I never really remember guys talking about family members or talking about a person’s significant other,” ESPN analyst and former NFL offensive lineman Damien Woody says. “I know that whole incident with Melo and KG supposedly happened, but that’s the exception. Definitely not the norm, I can tell you that.”

Maybe not for most, but as Woodson points out, one of his former teammates in Dallas, Charles Haley, would get personal, prompting opponents to go after him.

“I think it’s just a level of respect,” he says. “Guys are competitors on the field and all those type of things, but guys are not going to cross that line.”

ESPN NFL analyst and former QB Trent Dilfer agrees.

“[Football] is such a physically and mentally taxing game,” Dilfer says. “[Your opponent’s] fighting the same aches and pains, the same mental exhaustion … that you are. And I just respect you too much to say something that is crossing the line.

“I think there’s also a moral compass that a lot of us have, too. … My integrity is worth more than my performance.”

But “crossing the line” is different for every player, because every individual has a different idea of where that line is. Rockets coach and former Celtics star Kevin McHale says he doesn’t think there is a line.

“How can you go too far? You’re trying to beat the other team. What’s too far?” McHale says. “I can tell you what, your definition of too far and my definition of too far would be completely different. I don’t know what too far is.”

Sometimes trash talk has trends. Woodson remembers the main talkers as wideouts and defensive backs. And Dilfer says most of the negative trash talk came not from great players but subpar ones.

“It’s their own personal insecurities,” Dilfer says.

Trash talking also had different tendencies based on the player. Charles Barkley was funny. Kerr recalls him jabbering with fans, ultimately cracking up the fans, himself and his opponent.

Gary Payton was, by most accounts, relentless.

“It just seemed to never stop,” ESPN NBA analyst and former player Jon Barry says.

Reggie White was apologetic.

“Reggie White was the most unique. He was so kind but such a monster as a player,” Dilfer says. “He’d be destroying you. [And then he would say], ‘Brother Trent, you all right? I almost feel bad doing it to you but I’m coming back.’ ”

Through the years, trash talking has evolved. Kerr thinks the friendlier relationships between players now has led to less-nasty chatter, with Kerr calling it “more kind of a collegial trash talking now.”

“Guys just seem to know each other a lot better now,” he says. “Maybe that cuts down on the maliciousness of the trash talk.”

McHale is well aware. He drafted Garnett in Minnesota in 1995.

“So some guy said, ‘I’m gonna kick your rear end’ or ‘what you got’ or ‘you can’t guard me,’ all of a sudden now in our politically correct world that’s bad? If you heard half the stuff we used to say, I chuckle at that,” McHale says. “So he talked some smack. Big deal, everybody talks smack.”